Architects Hopkins to design new cricket stadium in Kochi

Kozhikode: London-based world renowned architects Hopkins has been given the task of designing the international standard 50,000 capacity cricket stadium at Edakochi in Kochi, a top official of Kerala cricket Association (KCA) said on Monday.

The work on the stadium to come up on an area of 23 acres of picturesque land with water frontage of about 400 metres was expected to begin at the earliest, KCA Secretary T C Mathew told reporters.

The stadium will have practice stadium, indoor practice stadium, international quality turf wickets with facilities for conducting day/night matches and Test matches, he said.

On the renovation work at Jawaharlal Nehru International stadium in Kochi, the venue for the one-day match between India and Australia to be played on October 17, he said it was fast progresing and the stadium was expected to be fully ready by September.

The turf was being relaid, while the work on the roofing had already been completed. All the old chairs had been replaced with new ones, he said.

Besides the India-Australia ODI, a cricket feast awaits Keralites with a string of inter-state First Class matches including, three Ranji trophy matches slated to be played in the state in this season.

In the three months between October 17 to December 21, Kerala will play host to about 25 First Class cricket matches, Mathew said.

Kochi`s Jawaharlala Nehru stadium will be the venue for Kerala`s home Ranji Trophy matches against Jammu and Kashmir, (Nov 10-13), Vidarbha (Nov 17-20) and Maharashtra (Dec 1 to 4).

Thiruvananthapuram`s LNCP, Palakkad`s Fort Maidan, Kozhikode`s NIT, Perinthalmanna`s Angadipuram stadiums will be the venues for the first class matches.